Category Archives: Comfort cooling

Image courtesy of DLR Group DLR Group Architects (http://www.dlrgroup.com/home/) have incorporated Bio-PCM ENRG blankets into walls and ceilings of a classroom and its performance will be compared with a similar, non-PCM containing classroom (see http://schoolconstructionnews.com/2018/02/16/thermal-mass-2-0-reinventing-energy-design-user-experience/). The project is based at Canyon View High School in Waddell, Arizona. Both rooms will monitor HVAC energy, overall building energy…

Image courtesy of Roland Korner, Filmfabrik, Woessner The new apartment building in Vaduz, Liechtenstein has been designed as an active energy building. Details of the project can be found at http://www.architectour.net/opere/opera.php?id_opera=6869&nome_opera=Marxer%20Haus&architetto=Falkeis%C2%B2architects&language=1 and http://www.puretemp.com/pcmatters/inspired-by-nature-marxer-haus-takes-wing-in-liechtenstein. As well as many other sustainable features, the apartment block utilises movable “wings”. These climate wings contain 1.4 tonnes of Rubitherm PCMs enclosed in aluminium tubes. …

On very hot days, the power grids in the USA are under considerable strain to maintain power to all the country’s air conditioners. A new start-up in Chicago, NETenergy, works on the premise “why store electricity to generate cold air when you could store cold instead” (see http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/03/22/chicago-startups-thermal-battery-is-adaptive-solution-to-spikes-in-electricity-demand/). A chemical engineering professor at the University of…

Image courtesy of NASA NASA has developed a phase change material heat exchanger — PCM HX for short — which stores energy by thawing a wax-based phase change material using hot coolant. That energy is later rejected by the spacecraft’s radiator, which then refreezes the wax and prepares it for the next heat load. This new type…